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Google to launch third-party commenting platform to rival Facebook

Google is about to launch a new commenting system that will tie into the search giant’s Google+ platform, web services and web search, a source close to the product’s development confirmed with The Next Web

Tech-WD blogger Saud Al-Hawawi also reported yesterday that several new Google features that have yet to be announced were discussed at the Google event G-Saudi Arabia, including the new commenting platform.

The Google comment system, which will almost certainly rival that of Facebook, will have deep links to Google’s network of services and websites, indexing comments in Google Search, and most significantly, the system will be available for use on third party sites.

You can’t go anywhere these days without running into a site that is using Facebook’s third-party comment platform, and it looks like Google wants in on the action.

A third party Google comment system would ensure that users are further plugged in to their Google accounts, and one step closer to Google+.

It certainly wouldn’t come as a surprise, as Google continues to push its social network further into the public sphere, and tie all of its products into that hard-to-miss black navigation bar at the top of every Google product page, with Play added just yesterday.

The question remains how this will affect services that are dedicated exclusively to providing a comment platform, like Disqus and Livefyre, who may struggle to compete against the likes of Facebook and Google down the line, each of wish enjoy a well-established user-base.

Another piece of news that Tech-WD came across is that Google+ will be rolling out vanity URLs – a much needed feature, but one which several third party apps already offers Google+ users. This feature has long been on Google’s to-dos, and it seems that it may finally be approaching the top of the list.

We have contacted Google for comment and will update the article should we receive a response.